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May 01, 2013

The Vintage Kitchen

Walk past the Screen Cinema, past one of
the ugliest high rise buildings in Dublin and down a desolate side street and you
will find the Vintage Kitchen.It’s a
blink and you could miss it sort of situation. Situated beside Mulligans Pub, the Vintage Kitchen
is a lovely bright addition to an otherwise grey and dreary neighbourhood. On a
freezing cold night, just before Easter, Maya and I decided that it was time to
visit. It was that bitterly cold week when the wind howled and it felt like
your fingers might disintegrate if you took your gloves off. At seven on a Wednesday evening The Vintage Kitchen was beautifully warm, welcoming and packed full of people which is always a good sign.

Focaccia & onion butter

The Vintage Kitchen is a small cosy
restaurant but the way it is laid out means the tables aren’t too on top of
each other so you can keep your conversation to yourself. Having taken off
about five layers we settled ourselves down to have a look at the fantastic
menu.

The Vintage Kitchen specialises in local ingredients and this is evident
throughout the menu. It took us a while to decide but while doing so we took
advantage of the BYOW policy. The Vintage Kitchen does
not charge corkage once you order two courses from their
Dinner menu. It’s a great deal and the only problem you will have is choosing your
two dishes!We also whetted our
appetites with the terrific focaccia and onion butter that was set down in
front of us.

For starters I had
the Wild Glenmalure Duck liver crème with apple and date bread and plum jam. This
was divine with a smooth creamy texture and went wonderfully with the still
warm apple and date bread.

Maya went for the Chowder special and was presented
with a large bowl of chowder with a good helping of mussels in it. The chowder
was light but worked well as a starter.

For the main Maya
went for the Seared Organic Salmon, wild Galway cockles, caramelized parsnip,
wasabi and seaweed crispy rice with pink caviar. This was a beautifully
executed dish and style wise was very unexpected. It tasted as good as it
looked though and all the elements gelled well together.

I decided to go for
the special of Haddock risotto with greens and this was more along the lines of what
I had expected. A large bowl of risotto was given to me which was a perfect
meal for the day that was in it. It was creamy, not too salty and the fish wasn’t
overpowered by the other flavours. It may not have looked as spectacular as
Maya’s but it tasted just as good.

Despite feeling quite
full we couldn’t leave without trying dessert. There were only two options available
so that made our lives easy as we just got one of each! Between us we shared the Half-baked chocolate
cake with maple syrup sour cream and the baked limoncello cheese cake with
vanilla ice cream. The favourite of the two was definitely the cheesecake which
was fluffy and light but after such great starters and mains the desserts did
disappoint. The half-baked chocolate cake was literally just liquid chocolate
with a thin cooked layer on top and the overwhelming taste was one of butter.

Baked Limoncello Cheesecake

Half-baked Chocolate Cake

To finish of the meal we were given a
limoncello cocktail which was a lovely touch and ended the meal on a high note.

The Vintage Kitchen is
a budget conscious restaurant but the food is anything but that. The food is
stylish, glamorous and most importantly tasty. You will leave feeling like you
have just discovered a secret gem in a dreary part of Dublin and if you are
anything like me, as soon as you leave, you will be planning your next visit
back!

The whole meal cost
us €64.50 which was for two starters, two mains, two desserts and a glass of
wine.

The Vintage Kitchen is located at 7 Poolbeg Street and they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Sunday. Find them on Facebook or talk to them on Twitter.